Reshaping the state’s corrections system should not carve a hole in state fire protection. The Legislature needs to ensure that the valuable, cost-effective inmate firefighting program continues. California should not let a change in inmate supervision erode the ranks of badly needed prison fire crews.

State officials said this month that the realignment plan could cost California about 1,500 of the roughly 4,000 prisoners now working on nearly 200 inmate fire crews across the state. The prison crews will be fully staffed for the 2012 fire season, but would begin to shrink in 2013 as more felons go to county jails instead of state prisons.

California’s half-century old inmate firefighting program was an unintentional casualty of the state’s ambitious plan to shift responsibility for low-level felons to county government. Those lower-risk felons are a main source of manpower for the fire crews operated through the state corrections system.

The loss of the inmate firefighters, however, would be a serious blow to state fire services. The inmate firefighters play a sizable role in combating blazes in the 31 million acres where the state provides fire protection. Those extra hands become more crucial as state firefighting ranks shrink: The current budget, for example, trimmed the number of seasonal firefighters the state hires by more than 700, to 2,400.

The prison fire crews are also a bargain for a state government that spends about $1 billion a year on fire protection. The inmates work for $1 a day — far cheaper than other firefighters. Using inmates to battle wildfires saves taxpayers about $80 million a year. With fewer inmate crews, the state would face the prospect of paying far more for the same level of fire protection, or letting fire services erode. Neither option is attractive, particularly to residents in the largely rural areas that depend on state firefighters.

Achieving state budget “savings” by letting this cost-effective program collapse would be fiscally foolish. The state is willing to let counties send low-level felons back to the fire crews — as long as counties pay the $46 daily cost for each inmate. Counties say they cannot afford that expense. And the state’s approach creates a strange fiscal incentive that encourages local governments to use cheaper methods of handling nonviolent offenders, such as electronic monitoring, instead of putting those prisoners to work as firefighters.

The cost issue has snagged state and county talks about preserving the prison firefighting crews. But legislators will need to revisit realignment funding anyway, because the current budget left many of the long-term financial questions unanswered. As part of that process, legislators should find money to keep this useful program functioning.

The corrections realignment plan attempts to save the state money while improving public safety. Rethinking how government provides services is a promising idea, but that effort should not come at the expense of a prison program that works.